From time to time I’m going to be re-posting some of my favorite posts from the old SportsLizard Entrepreneur Blog that preceded Adam-McFarland.net. I was fresh out of academia and in the process of leaving corporate America. This was the true start-up phase for myself, my sites, and later Pure Adapt. Nothing I write now will quite capture the excitement, doubt, frustration, and passion that is such a part of entrepreneurship in the same way as those 296 posts do.
This particular post was originally written on 12/10/2005, the day after I decided to quit my job. I mention in the post about how my flight was delayed 13 hours on Friday. I intended to go home and work on SportsLizard all weekend long. Instead I was too worn out to do anything. What I didn’t mention was that while I was stuck in that airport in Jackson, Mississippi I had one white 8.5″ x 11″ sheet of paper that I used to plot my escape from corporate America. It started as an exercise – I was so pissed that I figured it would be therapeutic to brainstorm what it would take to hypothetically quit my job. It ended with me realizing that I totally could quit, should quit, and would quit. I did all of this while siting next to one of my co-workers. I was listening to my iPod and didn’t really care if he noticed or not. He didn’t.
It’s hard enough trying to run my business while working a full time job. Coming home at 5:30 after a stressful 9 hour day doesn’t exactly put me in the perfect working mindset. That’s tough, but I am beginning to discover that it’s nothing compared to when I have to travel.
My job doesn’t require a ton of travel, but like most corporate jobs these days I am working with people across the world and sometimes I have to work with them in person. In my first year of working out of college I have traveled about 10 times. Not a ton, but not insignificant either.
There are some good things about traveling – mainly that I get out of the office and that I can read whatever I want when I am on the plane. For whatever reason, I tend to come up with some of my best ideas when I am flying. Nonetheless, the bad things about business travel far outweighs the good.
When I travel, I generally spend all day working or eating with people from work, leaving no time at all to work on SportsLizard.com. When I do finally get back to my hotel, I am worn out. All that I have time for is checking my email. Nothing gets done except the bare minimum. And the trip totally messes up my week. The night before I leave I spend packing and the day after I am still getting adjusted to being back. Business travel completely kills my productivity.
This week took it to another level. I was supposed to return on Friday by noon and have the rest of the day off. Thanks to delays and cancellations, I didn’t get home until 1 AM! Talk about wasted time. Today I hardly got anything done because I was catching up on sleep. It drives me nuts.
Working 45 hours and running a business on the side is one thing. Traveling across the country and trying to run a business on the side is another.
Adam,
It’s fun reading these ‘throwback’ posts. I’m not sure if I ever wrote a post about why I love flying or not – but I, too, come up with my best ideas on a plane. For me, I think it’s about the potential. About how amazing this world is, the fact that I’m 30,000 feet in the air, sipping on water while reading…and thinking and dreaming…
Well said my friend. Flying is such a unique environment that it just turns my brain loose and the ideas just start flowing. I actually haven’t flown much since I left my job…hopefully this year I’ll take a few fun trips.
Adam, love these posts… I like to think of my current posts on the Corporatepreneur blog as future “throwback” posts for when I’m out.
What I’d love to see is how you got from idea to cashflow on Pure Adapt or SportsLizard. That’s the part that a lot of us who grew up looking for jobs are lacking.
Dale – great idea. I’ll definitely add it to my list of posts. I think it’s a really interesting topic.
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